Re: The state of functional programming

[Warren <ve3wwg@gmail.com>]

Dmitry A. Kazakov expounded in
news:g24nvegdi17t$.1azxwn1rwjixi$.dlg@40tude.net: 
> On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:24:08 -0700 (PDT), J.s wrote:
..
>> and
>> functions as values to make it easy to abstract units of a solution
>> into reusable pieces.
> 
> Function as a value of what? And what is the difference? Maybe a side
> effect of the call? Anyway I don't see how values can be reusable.
> 
>> Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I think FP and procedural languages are like opposite ends
of a fourier tranform.  In one system, one set of languages
are very effective at solutions in that domain, while the \
other set of languages (FP) struggles.

Do the transform into the other system, and then the other
(FP) languages provide simple answers to some problems,
while the traditional ones struggle.

Each collection of languages best solve problems in their 
domain of applicability.

For my money, FP still is less generally effective because
it relies on special tricks/algorithms to narrow down the
huge number of paths for a solution.  If the tricks/algorithms
do apply, then it works. For all other situations it is either
wrong or impractical (takes too long etc.)

Warren